Made a custom water block for cooling with a couple of my friend at my university. Heres the finished cooling system and some results.
First details of the block - full copper with pin design. Chrome barbs were used because we couldnt find brass ones. They did end up looking better than the we had expected though. The block weighs around 600gms (didnt measure, so might not be accurate). Will post pics of how the inside looks in some time. But heres how the block looks from the outside. Joints are soldered.
Bottom view - rough milling. There were some deep cuts caused when we were working on the block, so sanded with 200 grit sandpaper to remove the cuts. No sanding with finer grit. No mirror finish or polishing either.
One more view of the block
Block was leak tested for 12 hours before installation. The block was installed using the back plate of my Asus StarIce as we couldnt make a back plate. We didnt use a spring mount either - didnt have time to buy the springs. We used countersunk screws with the backplate and plexi glass washers to secure the block tightly. Heres a picture to illustrate the plexiglass washers clearly. The pic shows the block installed and working in my Asrock 775Twins - HDTV motherboard.
Heres a better picture of the installation - mid-tower ATX case, PSU, mobo and the water block are visible.
We used a 40W fountain pump running of mains to power the loop. The flow was strong and it was way more powerful than necessary. I couldnt find any smaller pumps here though and this one was cheap at about $10. The heatercore is from a Daewoo car. Picked it up from a junkyard for $8. Dont know the other details, but will post dimensions if someone wants. We used it passive.
Heres the complete installation - used a plastic box as the reservoir. The water cooling was running when the pic was taken. Used tap water for the run.
And finally the temps.
Idle temps - 2C delta
Load temps - 9C delta
That was after sitting for a few hours in the BIOS. So I assume its as good as idle temps. The loaded temps with 2 Prime95 and Orthos were 46C after 6 hours of running. Will post pics of that soon. The processor was a E6300 with a slight overclock to 2.2GHz at stock vcore.
A 9C delta at load with a small overclock doesnt seem too good, but then we had
1) No fans on the heatercore.
2) No AS5 on the block. Used cheapo white thermal paste.
3) Water block base was not flat.
4) Unnecessarily powerful pump dumping 40W into the water.
5) Pressure on the CPU might not have been good enough or uniform - used plexi for mounting. Should have used springs. Next run will be with springs under the plexi
6) No overclocked temps/extra overclock due to cooling. Used cheapo motherboard. Cant afford to risk my DS3.
I will be making a low profile water block without pins soon. Will make it such that it can be mounted on any motherboard. Review with complete test on my DS3 and overclocked temps, speed improvements as well. Results and pics after my summer holidays
Raghu.
PS : A big thanks to my friends and my uni.
First details of the block - full copper with pin design. Chrome barbs were used because we couldnt find brass ones. They did end up looking better than the we had expected though. The block weighs around 600gms (didnt measure, so might not be accurate). Will post pics of how the inside looks in some time. But heres how the block looks from the outside. Joints are soldered.
Bottom view - rough milling. There were some deep cuts caused when we were working on the block, so sanded with 200 grit sandpaper to remove the cuts. No sanding with finer grit. No mirror finish or polishing either.
One more view of the block
Block was leak tested for 12 hours before installation. The block was installed using the back plate of my Asus StarIce as we couldnt make a back plate. We didnt use a spring mount either - didnt have time to buy the springs. We used countersunk screws with the backplate and plexi glass washers to secure the block tightly. Heres a picture to illustrate the plexiglass washers clearly. The pic shows the block installed and working in my Asrock 775Twins - HDTV motherboard.
Heres a better picture of the installation - mid-tower ATX case, PSU, mobo and the water block are visible.
We used a 40W fountain pump running of mains to power the loop. The flow was strong and it was way more powerful than necessary. I couldnt find any smaller pumps here though and this one was cheap at about $10. The heatercore is from a Daewoo car. Picked it up from a junkyard for $8. Dont know the other details, but will post dimensions if someone wants. We used it passive.
Heres the complete installation - used a plastic box as the reservoir. The water cooling was running when the pic was taken. Used tap water for the run.
And finally the temps.
Idle temps - 2C delta
Load temps - 9C delta
That was after sitting for a few hours in the BIOS. So I assume its as good as idle temps. The loaded temps with 2 Prime95 and Orthos were 46C after 6 hours of running. Will post pics of that soon. The processor was a E6300 with a slight overclock to 2.2GHz at stock vcore.
A 9C delta at load with a small overclock doesnt seem too good, but then we had
1) No fans on the heatercore.
2) No AS5 on the block. Used cheapo white thermal paste.
3) Water block base was not flat.
4) Unnecessarily powerful pump dumping 40W into the water.
5) Pressure on the CPU might not have been good enough or uniform - used plexi for mounting. Should have used springs. Next run will be with springs under the plexi
6) No overclocked temps/extra overclock due to cooling. Used cheapo motherboard. Cant afford to risk my DS3.
I will be making a low profile water block without pins soon. Will make it such that it can be mounted on any motherboard. Review with complete test on my DS3 and overclocked temps, speed improvements as well. Results and pics after my summer holidays
Raghu.
PS : A big thanks to my friends and my uni.
hyeah:
